An Indonesian man has admitted to the police that he fired shots during an ambush that killed two US schoolteachers in the province of Papua in 2002, but also said he saw three men in Indonesian military uniforms firing at the teachers' convoy as well, his lawyer said on Friday.
The accused, Anthonius Wamang, who has been indicted in Washington in connection with the killings and was lured to his arrest by FBI agents on Wednesday, also told the police that he had been given his bullets by a senior Indonesian soldier, Wamang's lawyer, Albert Rumbekwan, said in a telephone interview from Papua.
The shootings, on a road owned by the US company Freeport-McMoRan, which runs the world's largest gold mine in the area, have for years been a stumbling block to the efforts of US President George W. Bush's administration to improve relations with Indonesia.
The US had severed relations for 12 years with the Indonesia military over human rights abuses. Prior to restoring those ties in November, Bush administration officials consistently sought to absolve the Indonesian military of any link to the killings.
Wamang's confession contradicts public statements by Bush administration officials that there was no military involvement.
For Freeport, based in New Orleans, the killings have been troubling. The teachers worked at a Freeport school and were returning from a picnic. At the time, Freeport was paying Indonesian soldiers and military units to protect its facilities, according to company records recently obtained by the New York Times.
Since the 1960s, the company has operated in a sometimes uneasy coexistence with local Papuans as well as the military in the restive province. In the past, Indonesian soldiers and disgruntled Papuans have acted together against Freeport, at one point orchestrating riots to extract greater benefits from its massive operations, according to accounts from former and current employees.
Wamang's statements now suggest that this same loose coalition may also have responsible for the killing of the teachers, Edwin Burgon, 71, and Ricky Lynn Spier, 44.
Wamang, a member of a Papuan separatist group, told the police he emptied one magazine from an M-16 into the windows of the teachers' vehicle, Rumbekwan said. When he finished, he said, he was surprised to see the three men, in uniforms and masks, firing from another angle, Wamang told the police, according to his lawyer.
Wamang and 11 other suspects were detained on Wednesday after being lured by the FBI to a small hotel in Papua, the Amole II in the town of Timika.
"We believed we were going to the US," Viktus Wanmang, a 57-year-old farmer who was among those detained, said in a telephone interview. He was released, along with three others, on Friday. The remaining eight are still being held.
He and the others had been told that they would be interviewed about the teachers' case in the US, because it would be safer for them there, said Wanmang and Denny Yomaki, an official with the Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy in Papua. The men were told their families would be given about US$70 for each day they were away, Yomaki said.
They arrived with their bags packed, Wanmang and Yomaki said. But when they reached the hotel, they were instead greeted by two FBI agents, and a third person, who some of the men thought was a Freeport employee, Yomaki said.
The FBI agents hustled the men into a windowless truck.
"The car was driven at high speeds," said Wanmang. The FBI agents sat in front.
"When we stopped, when the car door opened, there was a group of police waiting," he added.
The US embassy declined to comment on the circumstances of their capture, or about Wamang's assertion that the military may have been involved in the teachers' killings.
None of the men have been charged with crimes, except Wamang, who has been indicted in the US on two counts of murder and eight counts of attempted murder.
Eight US citizens were wounded in the ambush, and an Indonesian teacher was killed, along with the two US teachers.
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